Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
...

Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

Recent Posts

By Rob Meltzer

Nov. 22, 2013
12:11 p.m.

So, President Clinton has come out and told Obama that promises should be kept. It was a funny attack on Obama, since Obama has routinely noted that health care was a Clinton initiative and Hillary ran the Commission. Not so fast, shouted Bill. You can trash talk Romney about the roll out in Massachusetts, but Hillary is not within the bounds of conversation. As the Clintons prepare for 2016, look for Bill to increasingly fill this role. The narrative, as Obama plunges in popularity, will be to view the Obama years as an inter regenum, the stolen years. We’ve seen this ploy before, in 1968, from Nixon. In many, many ways, Bill Clinton is not Kennedy, he is Nixon, and Obama is not Lincoln–he’s Carter. And if Hillary is going to be elected, she is going to have to move away from her association as part of the Obama team. As I mentioned on another thread, even liberal pacs worry about her being viewed as just another novelty–the first woman–in favor of identifying her as a person of major accomplishment on her own. And yet, its not clear that being the only woman not to service bill in the Oval Office is the best credential for president, while her spotty record in the Senate and as Secretary of State just provides fodder for the right. As she steps out into the limelight, its pretty clear that Bill will be out in front with his hatchet, clearing the path and shaping the narrative.